The Basic Needs Movement in Higher Education with Dr. Rashida Crutchfield

When students can't meet their basic needs, academic success becomes exponentially harder. That reality shapes whether they enroll, persist, or graduate.

For our third episode, California Competes CEO Su Jin Jez speaks with Dr. Rashida Crutchfield, a leading researcher and advocate whose work has helped spark a basic needs movement in higher education. They dig into what the evidence demands of institutions, policymakers, and communities, and what it will actually take to meet students where they are.

Key Topics

• How the basic needs movement has evolved over two decades, and why rising costs and stubborn misconceptions mean the work is far from over
• Why short-term fixes only go so far, and why cross-sector partnerships are essential to winning deeper investments in student basic needs
• Why housing affordability is quietly shaping who enrolls in college at all

Our Guest
Dr. Rashida Crutchfield is a professor in the School of Social Work at California State University, Long Beach, and executive director of the Center for Equitable Higher Education, a research center dedicated to studying and promoting economic, food, and housing justice.

A leading researcher and advocate, Rashida's work as principal investigator for the CSU system-wide study on food and housing security helped shape basic needs programs across all 23 CSU campuses. She is co-author of Addressing Homelessness and Housing Insecurity in Higher Education: Strategies for Educational Leaders, a widely used resource for institutions developing basic needs programs and services. Dr. Crutchfield is an advisory board member for California ASPIRES, a coalition California Competes recently launched to streamline public benefits for student success.

In This Episode

• College Focused Rapid Rehousing Program
• California Alliance for Streamlining Public Investments and Resources for Every Student (California ASPIRES)
• Higher Ed Research Informing Solutions for Excellence (Higher Ed RISE) initiative
• Improving College Affordability by Streamlining Access to Public Benefits

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

When we ensure that our students have access to higher education, they also have access to what still is the biggest driver of economic mobility. And when we don't surround them with all of the things they need to be successful, we're stagnating them, but we're also stagnating ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Welcome to the Degrees of Change podcast from California Competes, Higher Education for a Strong Economy. I'm Dr. Sue Jinchez, your host and CEO of California Competes. For 15 years, we've been working to transform higher education and workforce policy in California. This season, Crystal Clear, a vision for the future of California Higher Ed, marks our 15th anniversary, our crystal anniversary, by bringing together diverse voices to reflect on where we've been, where we are now, and most importantly, what's needed for California's next chapter. In today's episode, we're turning to an issue at the foundation of student success, basic needs. When students' basic needs, like safe housing, food security, or stable childcare aren't met, being academically successful becomes exponentially harder. Joining me is Dr. Rashida Crutchfield, professor in the School of Social Work at Cal State Long Beach and Executive Director of the Center for Equitable Higher Education. Dr. Crutchfield's research and advocacy has sparked a basic needs movement in higher education. She also serves on the advisory board for the California Alliance for Streamlining Public Investments and Resources for Every Student, or Cal Espires for short, a coalition California Competes recently launched to streamline public benefits for student success. Dr. Crutchfield, thank you for being here today. Yeah, I'm very happy to be here. I'd love to start with a retrospective question. Your work on this issue began long before the headlines about student basic needs and security. What drew you to this issue?

SPEAKER_00 2:05

This work started for me when I was working at Covenant House, California. Covenant House is a national organization that serves youth experiencing homelessness. And I was working in Hollywood with young people who were living in shelter and in transition services. And some of our residents were going to college. And sometimes they would experience difficulties in the college environment less because they were homeless and more because the college environments weren't prepared for them. So we had a resident who had gone to register for her classes and got stopped in financial aid. They let her know that she needed to provide her parents tax information and she let them know she was homeless. But the person that she spoke to said, Well, you don't look homeless. You're probably just fighting with your parents, and you need to go get those tax forms and but come back, and you're gonna miss this semester, but you can come back next semester. And she came back to the shelter distraught. And there is still an amazing nun named Sister Margaret Farrell who went up to that school, much like I would expect one of my aunties to go up to the school and told some people some things about what they needed to do for that student. And that experience made me think, you know, what happens for our youth who don't have a feisty Irish nun to go and support them. And so I was really interested in the experience of college and homelessness. And ultimately did my dissertation interviewing students who were both experiencing homelessness and going to college. So that's kind of where it all started for me.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

And how have things changed since then? What feels different?

SPEAKER_00 4:14

Well, at the time, students like like this one student or the students who participated in my dissertation, there was no policy protecting them. Not at the state nor at the federal level. There were no policies that saw them even. I mean, when I was doing my dissertation, I have an ed D. So I have a degree in educational leadership. And I was going to conferences and talking about my research, and folks were like, this is not a higher ed issue. We don't have homelessness on our colleges. And I think, you know, people were anticipating that what homelessness looks like is something that fits a stereotype and really did not see students at all. Now, you know, some almost 20 years later, we know that students are experiencing homelessness. We're not so much leaning into the starving student narrative that normalizes that students struggle while they're in college. I think the landscape, the narrative is very different. And the policies that go with that narrative are emerging. And I think we have a lot more work to do. But the fact that we can identify the issues and see our students as their whole selves, that's a huge difference.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

And how do you respond to people who see college students' basic needs and security as normal? Like, what's at stake when we approach meeting those needs as optional rather than essential?

SPEAKER_00 5:51

I get that quite a lot, actually. I try to approach it with kindness, in that sometimes people who are saying that are my age or older and lived a different experience. I worked when I was in college. I did my fair share of eating cup of noodles or rice. And I think one, there is a misconception about who the new traditional student is. Our students often are not straight out of high school. Even if they are, they may not have financial support at home. You know, back in my days, you could get a part-time job and go to school full-time and still have some capacity to think, particularly if you had a little savings or you had parents who could get you out of a bind. But many of our students don't have that experience. So many of our students don't have that experience, especially in the state of California. But across the country, the expense of going to college is different than it was when I was younger. But even more so, the real costs of things like food and housing and childcare have exploded. And meeting those needs while going to college is a different experience than me working in the cafeteria and going to class.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

Right. The shift work has changed so much too. So even the jobs that I feel like many students have had in the past, you just can't, you know, even if it paid enough, even if the money weren't sort of the core issue, the scheduling is just doesn't work anymore.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Well, and even like I was I was in it in a debate with someone I met some time ago who was like, kids these days they feel too good to work at McDonald's. And I said, Sweetie, who's working at McDonald's right now? Like, even the jobs that used to easily fit around a college degree, we're adults working, trying to make a living, particularly again in the state of California. But this is across the country, the competitive need in the job market is different than it was. I also think, in general, an apathy about higher education these days suggests that it's only privileged folks who are in school. But that's not the case. I think the danger, one of the dangers of thinking this way is that we don't see higher education as an investment in our own communities, and it really is. When we ensure that our students have access to higher education, they also have access to what still is the biggest driver of economic mobility. And when we don't surround them with all of the things they need to be successful, we're we're stagnating them, but we're also stagnating ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

It's like how when my neighbor gets a college degree, I earn more money. We're blocking that ripple effect. So what do we do? You've seen many approaches to basic needs support across campuses: food pantries, emergency grants, housing programs. What's working at scale and what does it take to move from short-term interventions to sustainable systemic solutions? And to be clear, we need short-term interventions, but we need a lot more sustainable systemic solutions.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

I think, well, this is a great question. I think, you know, we have to have a menu of options for students because what works for one student might not work for another. Also, we have gradations of these challenges. So the experience of someone who has had to face chronic homelessness is different than someone who is managing trying to get food more than once a day. So I think, you know, things like food pantries and emergency grants and temporary housing can be really helpful if I am on the cusp of insecurity. So if I am generally okay, but my car breaks down, which then has a cascading effect over whether or not I can get to work and school, then that $1,000 is gonna really ensure that I'm able to keep coming to school and going to work and doing everything I need to accomplish. But if I'm living in my car, then a one-time thousand dollar investment is not going to change that for me. We do have to have those short-term options for some students, but really scaling, addressing something like homelessness needs a deep state investment in cooperative work. So one example would be college-focused rapid rehousing, which is a state-funded program that disseminated millions of dollars to the CSU, to the UC, and the California community colleges. And the model, which was developed by Hoveness Inc., links higher ed institutions with community-based housing services, understanding that we on the higher education side are not housing experts, and understanding that community-based housing or homelessness interventions often don't see students as their clients. So there has been this gap between higher ed and CBOs and this void in the middle where students often lie. But college-focused rapid rehousing builds a bridge across that void and allows the universities or colleges to identify students experiencing homelessness and then really working hand in hand with a community-based organization that can house the student, subsidize their rent, and provide them wraparound services. The Center for Equitable Higher Education, so My House, led a three-year evaluation of that program. I'll say that one of the biggest headlines is that we looked at the experiences of students who were homeless and were housed through CFRR and compared that to students who got one-time grants. And students in College Focus Rapid Rehousing or CFRR were more likely to be retained and graduate than even students who'd had no homelessness experience at all. It's an expensive program. And frankly, to address homelessness, we have to make those in-depth investments.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

There's growing recognition that student basic needs can't be solved by higher education alone. What does a coordinated cross-sector system that centers student needs actually look like? And who needs to be at the table?

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Honestly, I think the California Aspires effort is a model for this, right? I think when we as higher ed organizations, as advocacy organizations, all of the players, when we think about how do we support students, we have to identify that none of us can do this by ourselves. Just like we needed to be helped to see our students as whole beings that need support. And so I think sometimes we know this intellectually and connect maybe with organizations. So I'm thinking inside of the higher ed institutions, we may connect passively with our environments, but really developing relationships with the county, with the state to really support services is an investment of time and energy because those collaborations are not easy and they take time. I think when we work together, so when we bring in the state and community and county services, when we bring together legislators, when we bring together practitioners, as well as students themselves who can speak to their own experiences, then we can start to link and connect related services. When we can make applying for CalFresh an easier thing to do, again, it benefits the student and it benefits the higher ed institution and it benefits the community to which they belong.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

I want to zoom back in on housing for a moment. You're working with California Competes on our higher ed research informing solutions for excellence or higher ed rise, as we call it for short, this initiative to research perceptions of college affordability and housing and how these perceptions influence the decision to enroll in college. Why is understanding those perceptions so important? And what are they telling us about barriers to and through college today?

SPEAKER_00 15:46

You know, across the country, higher ed is seeing enrollment challenges. It's not universal. There are plenty of institutions that still have many students who are applying, but for many institutions, enrollment is decreasing. And I think there are a lot of reasons for that, but among them is the cost-benefit analysis that students are making when they're entering higher education. I believe that student basic needs are student human rights, and I shouldn't have to sacrifice my housing and my well-being in order to better myself, in order to make myself a marketable person, in order to have the college experience that isn't just about jobs, but it's also about growing and learning and building community. But I think to your question, when students are deciding whether or not they can afford to go to school, they have to think about the full picture for themselves and potentially for their families. The Center for Equitable Higher Education did some work with the three higher ed public higher ed student government organizations to really look at what do students see as affordability for housing. And again, we found many, many outcomes of that study, but students are not seeking like plush apartments. We do have to rethink even student housing on campus, because I think for a long time people saw student housing as a draw, as something fancy that students would be excited to pay for. Students really want to be housed, they want to have a place to stay, they want to feel safe, and if they can't afford their housing, then they can't afford college. Even if I want, you know, several roommates in a city like Los Angeles or San Francisco or Humboldt or San Diego. Housing is wildly expensive. And so affordability or understanding how to support students, how to help them understand what it actually costs, and then making sure that how we list costs of attendance allows students to get the financial aid they need to attend school. And it also helps us understand what our responsibilities are as they're making that decision to enter or to stay.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

We named this season Crystal Clear because we're trying to cut through complexity to reveal what's really needed to strengthen California's future. When it comes to basic needs in higher education, what's the biggest misconception or myth you'd like to clear up? What do people just get wrong?

SPEAKER_00 18:58

One of the things that I hear over and over again is these students just need to get a job. If they would just get a job, then they would be fine. And I want people to know that I haven't talked to a student, and I've talked to literally thousands of students as we've done this research. And almost all of them have at least one job. Many of them have two jobs, some of them have three jobs while they're going to school. Our students are hustling to make this work. And I think broadly we have to make sure also that we're not requiring anyone to prove their poverty to be successful. I think the other thing that people go to very quickly is, you know, people in general will try to take something. But most students, again, that I talk to say things like, Well, I'm not really using services because someone else might have it harder than me. And, you know, I'll sit and listen to a student tell me that they eat maybe once a day and are living in their car, but they say things like, Well, I have a car and someone else might not have a car. And I have to sort of reflect back to them. Like, if I told you that I was living in my car, what would you suggest that I do? And then they'll talk to me about all the resources that I should get. And then I go, Well, okay, so how does this work for you? And I think we all need to understand that so many of our students are suffering in silence and do not feel seen and are just doing the best they can to get towards graduation. Our students are not spoiled rotten kids who are overspending. Our students are us. Our students are ourselves, and they're doing everything that they know how to get to graduation. And so I think if we can understand that better at the root, then we can understand our roles inside and outside of education to support their basic needs.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

Looking ahead, what's your vision for how colleges and the broader system should support students' basic needs and what's most critical for making that vision a reality in California?

SPEAKER_00 21:32

You know, I've said this before to you, Sujin, but I think one of the things that I really enjoy when I get to talk to you is that you have this optimism that I so appreciate because sometimes I get deep in the weeds and think, oh, we've got so much work to do. And we do, but I can still have that optimism that I get from you. I really see this time as an opportunity to. Really stand up and show why all of this work that we've done to lift basic needs as an essential part of the higher education experience. It's a beautiful thing that we've created and holding on to it and affirming those who maintain that vision and then those investments is important work for us to do so that in the future, this isn't something that's and an aside. I think in some ways, for some people, it's like we're still in this mind frame that college is what happens inside the classroom. And if we can really anchor ourselves in understanding that nothing happens inside the classroom that's in isolation from what's going on with the students in their lives. And so when we both on the academic side but also legislatively draw together in concentric circles those worlds, then students get what they need. So I think the scarcity mentality also has us thinking about numbers in a way that isn't effective. So one of the dangers that we have with college focused rapid rehousing, which we've seen as a proven really important model for addressing homelessness, one of the dangers is to go, well, instead of investing so much in housing for students long term, I'm going to give out lots of these thousand dollar checks. Because then I can say I've helped a lot of people, versus saying I deeply invested in a hundred people. I think that one comes from a place of needing to prove based on width and not depth of practice, um, but also the scarcity of like, well, let's let's try to share as much as possible. And that sharing is great, but if it really doesn't have the outcomes we need, then that's not effective. So I think my optimistic vision for the future is that we are deeply engaged in making sure that students have streamlined access to all kinds of services, to cow fresh, to healthcare, to all sorts of opportunities, and they are housed and they are fed and they are graduating. I think that once our systems really like merge their understandings of students as whole people, then we can make real action happen around basic needs. I think my vision is that higher education really is a functional ecosystem that engages both county and community services, that is working with the state legislature, and we ourselves inside of higher ed all are thinking about our overall roles in addressing education. And when we really our mission is education, our mission is students and all of who they are as whole beings.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

Is there anything we haven't covered that you think people need to know about basic needs?

SPEAKER_00 25:30

We have had a lot of investment in basic needs from the state and investment from private foundations and community foundations and higher ed institutions themselves. And that direct support to students is first. If we're triaging, it is first and it is important. What I will say is that the less sexier but really critical investment is in research because we often build these programs because they seem right, they feel right, but if we don't evaluate them, we don't know if they're actually working. And whether that is evaluation that folks do with us at CHE or elsewhere, we have to be looking at program outcomes and process so that we know that we are doing what we intend to do.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

100%. So important to do if our goal is to serve people.

SPEAKER_00 26:30

Yeah, and well, I think about you know, just in how communities address homelessness more broadly, we have lots of programs, but some of those programs don't do what the people they're trying to serve really want. And so they don't come back. We haven't asked them what they actually need, we've decided for them what they need and then force them into it, congratulated ourselves for doing it, and then get mad at that person for not coming to the table. And I think it's similar with our students. If we build programs and they're not what they actually need, then they stop coming. And then we get to say, well, we tried. And once we teach people that our services are not gonna fit what they need, it's hard to get to build that trust again. So I think part of it is understanding what we want, but it also is understanding who we serve to the best of our ability so that they get what they need, but they also trust us and we build that community of trust.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

Can you think of a time when there was a program and then there was an evaluation that unearthed something that allowed that program to improve and better serve students?

SPEAKER_00 27:46

I can think of two examples. So if I am very low income, possibly homeless, I can get a voucher from the county that allows me to be housed. And then the county provides funds for my rent, and I likely will pay some portion of my rent on top of that. But it definitely, I mean, it's very complicated because I am a person who's been experiencing homelessness and I have this voucher, and maybe I can go in a place to live. But people often don't take Section 8 vouchers for a variety of reasons. So the program in and of itself was great because I got the voucher, but if I can never use the voucher, then it doesn't matter. And I think without evaluation, we could sit and go, well, we got we've disseminated 100 vouchers, but if only 20 of them were used, then that's not useful. On the other hand, I was working with Rio Hondo College, which is down here in Southern California, and they have this amazing program called Hope Scholars. They work with Whittier College that had empty beds in their housing, and then they housed students through that program. They also developed a web of connections across all of the student services organizations. So we like to say we want to give students warm handoffs to things like counseling or veteran services. But when you have actual connections, I can say, okay, Sujin, I'm gonna ask you to talk to Erin in EOPS, and she's expecting you right now, then that's a different thing than go check out EOPS. And the assessment we did with them really drew up and out some of their successes that they could lean into and choose how to deepen their investment in those strategies. So two different examples, but you know, perhaps helpful.

SPEAKER_01 29:55

That's great. I feel like it really illuminates sort of the value of evaluation that it's not sort of a nice to have. It really should be a must-have, just like addressing basic needs. Exactly. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. Uh, I really appreciate your work and your leadership and making non-hig communities aware that the folks that they're serving are also college students or want to be college students or ought to be college students.

SPEAKER_00 30:24

So thank you so much for your work and joining us. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for all the work that you're doing. I think this is such an important platform for people to understand all different kinds of issues that we are tackling in higher ed. So I really appreciate the opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

Thanks for joining us on Degrees of Change. To learn more, visit californiacamppeeps.org. And don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss upcoming episodes featuring more voices shaping the future of higher education in our state. I'm Dr. Sujin Jez. Until next time.